Adventures in Babysitting
by A Chocolate Frog
Summary: Ginny watches little Teddy Lupin for an afternoon...and things don't quite go as planned.


_I was going to make this one of my Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Scenes, but it ended up being too long for that. This is for Jeremy, who gave me (read: let me steal) the idea. I had a lot of fun writing this one, and I hope you enjoy it!_

 _ **~Adventures in Babysitting~**_

"Teddy Lupin, what on _earth_ are you doing?"

The toddler looked up from his lunch and grinned at Ginny as applesauce dripped down his face.

"Mustache!" he crowed. "Is a mustache, Inny!"

Ginny couldn't help but smile as she grabbed a wash rag from the sink. "Sometimes I swear you're Sirius's kid, not Remus's. Oh, you've got it in your hair too!" She sighed, setting down the cloth and reaching for her wand. "What will your nana say if I give you back to her with applesauce all in your hair? _Tergeo!_ "

Andromeda Tonks, who had been raising her grandson since her daughter and son-in-law's untimely deaths two and a half years ago, had originally asked Hermione to watch Teddy for the day so she could do some shopping in Diagon Alley. Hermione had already made plans to go away for the weekend with Ron, so she had suggested her flatmate Ginny as an alternate, and Ginny had readily agreed.

As the youngest sibling, Ginny had never had much experience taking care of children, but she greatly enjoyed helping facilitate the Kiddy Quidditch Clinics the Holyhead Harpies held twice a year. Besides, she had figured, she would only be watching one two-year-old for a few hours. How hard could it be?

"There we go," she said as she finished siphoning applesauce from Teddy's bright blue locks. "Are you done eating?"

The little boy nodded, and she lifted him down from the stack of old textbooks she had placed on the chair so he could reach the table.

"When's Unca Harry comin' back?" he asked as Ginny carried both their plates to the sink.

"I expect he'll be back soon. He just had to get something he left at the office." She glanced out the window; it was still raining buckets, foiling her plans to take Teddy to the local park and teach him how to toss a Quaffle. "Well, little man," she said, using Harry's nickname for his godson, "what should we do now?"

"Hide-a-seek!" he exclaimed. "I gonna hide. No peekin'!"

"Okay!" Ginny half-closed her eyes and counted to ten, watching as Teddy hoisted himself onto the sofa and curled up under the blanket that had been draped over the back of the cushions. Then she pretended to look for him for several minutes, wondering aloud where he could be, before finally "finding" him.

They continued in this vein for half and hour, with Teddy hiding under the kitchen table, in the small space between the refrigerator and the wall, and behind a stack of file boxes Harry had brought from the Auror office.

"I hide again!" Teddy giggled, crawling out from under the coffee table this time.

"Once more," Ginny agreed. "Then let's read one of the books I got out of the library for you, and then you can have your nap. All right, ready? One...two..."

He started toward the corner with Harry's work things again, and then he stopped. "Inny! You peekin'!" he exclaimed, one hand on his little hip, the other pointing an accusing finger at her. "No peekin'!"

She opened her eyes fully and tried to look ashamed of herself. "I'm sorry, Teddy. I won't peek, I promise." She turned her back on him and closed her eyes for real, counting extra slowly to atone for her cheating. "All right, ready or not, here I come!"

Ginny turned around and opened her eyes. "Where could Teddy be?" she asked loudly, seeing no sign of him. She made a show of peering behind the armchair and under the coffee table again before walking over to Harry's boxes, but Teddy wasn't there.

"I wonder where he's hiding?" she called, silently telling herself there was no reason to be nervous. Maybe he had quietly sneaked into the kitchen – but no, he wasn't there, not even in any of the floor-level cabinets.

"Teddy, where are you?" she called, starting to feel worried now. Could he have gone down the hallway into the bedrooms?

Hurriedly, she checked under her bed, opened her wardrobe, and upended her clothes hamper, and then she searched Hermione's room as well. He was nowhere to be seen.

"Teddy, the game's over! Come out now!" she shouted, looking in the bathtub and under the sink. In a frenzy, she ran to her final hope, the coat closet, and began rifling through it.

"This isn't funny, Teddy, where are you?"

There was a knock at the door. Ginny froze.

"Oh no, oh no," she muttered miserably. Andromeda was back early! What would Ginny say to her?

There was a click, and the door swung open as Harry walked through it.

"I'm back," he said, shaking water out of his eyes and pulling some documents from within his traveling cloak. "Weather's still horrible." He stopped and stared at the jumble of boots and hangers that lay on the floor around his girlfriend. "What are you – ?"

"Harry, I've lost him! I've lost Teddy!" she cried frantically. "We were playing hide-and-go-seek, and it was fine the first few times, but then I actually closed my eyes, and he disappeared! I've looked _everywhere_! What am I going to do? What if he's hurt? What if he hit his head? Merlin, what if he got out of the flat?"

"Okay," Harry said, putting his hands on Ginny's shoulders. "It's going to be okay. We will find him. He can't have got out of the flat; I locked it when I left, and I unlocked it just now. He has to be here. Teddy!" he called loudly, moving further into the flat. "It's Uncle Harry! Come out so I can play with you!"

There was no response.

"I'm going to be a terrible mother," Ginny murmured, picking up the blanket from the sofa and shaking it out hopefully, even though there was obviously nothing under it. "Harry, we are never having kids. I will lose them."

"You won't lose them. You haven't lost Teddy," he assured her. "Maybe...maybe he did magic of some kind? I did magic a few times before I knew I was a wizard."

"Lots of kids can do magic when they're emotional, but just little things. I once managed to make a pitcher of water spill on Ron's comic book when I was mad at him. But I was six. Two and a half seems way too young to make himself go completely invisible, don't you – " She stopped as Harry held up a finger.

"Invisible," he repeated, taking out his wand. " _Accio Cloak!_ "

The Invisibility Cloak zoomed across the room and into his hand. It had come from behind the file boxes in the corner. Harry and Ginny raced over, and there, behind the boxes, lay Teddy, fast asleep. His head was resting on the satchel Harry carried to work, which was open at the top, folders and quills spilling out of it.

"Merlin's pants!" Ginny swore quietly. "Andromeda mentioned he didn't sleep well last night because of the storm."

"I pulled everything out of my bag looking for those papers I left at the office, and then I stuffed everything back in in a hurry. The Cloak must have been hanging out," Harry reasoned.

"It was," she sighed, "now that I think of it. I saw it when he hid behind the boxes before. It never occurred to me that he'd get under it. I'm so _stupid_!"

"No you're not." Harry wrapped his arm around her waist and kissed the top of her head. "You're not used to having a little kid around. Nor am I; I'm sure I wouldn't have seen the potential for a problem either. But now we both know, and it won't happen again. Teddy probably had no idea what he was hiding under."

Ginny nodded in agreement. "I hope Andromeda doesn't get too mad about this. She'll probably never let me watch him again."

Harry grinned. "I'll bet she laughs. She raised Tonks, remember? She has to have had her share of scary parenting situations. Probably plenty of weird ones too." He kissed her hair again, then stooped down to pick up his sleeping godson and carried him over to the couch. Teddy stirred but didn't wake.

Ginny couldn't help but smile as she watched the tender moment. Her utter panic from a few minutes ago had subsided, and she was quite glad to have another evening alone with Harry before Hermione returned. She picked up the Cloak and folded it, placing it on a bookshelf that was well out of Teddy's reach. Then she perched on the arm of the chair where Harry had settled, still watching the little boy.

"You know, you're going to make a fantastic father someday."

Harry smiled and pulled her into his lap; she relaxed into him and laid her head on his shoulder.

"Only with your help," he replied. "You're going to be an amazing mother, Gin."

"Someday," she said again. "I'll help you and you'll help me. Deal?"

Harry grinned and rested his head against hers. "Deal."

 _-.-.-.-.-_

 _A/N: I've had a few reviewers point out that in Deathly Hallows, we see a Death Eater try and fail to Summon the Invisibility Cloak. I believe that Harry, as a long-time owner of the Cloak and a descendant of Ignotus Peverell, has a special connection to the Cloak and would therefore be able to Summon it. But if J.K. Rowling ever says anything to the contrary, I'll eat my words!_

 _Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think._

 _-A Chocolate Frog_


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